In a different case, when
a grieving father was going on a hunger strike to protest for an
independent investigation to determine what caused the sinking of the
Sewol
that
took his child's life, Ilbe members staged a “binge-eating”
counter-protest a walking distance away from the man because they
thought that he was being used by progressive lawmakers to
destabilize the conservative government.

According to a Professor
Choung Wan, from Kyung Hee University Law School, who was quoted by Claire Lee in the
Korea Herald
for this article,
the former was a terror attack and an act of hate crime whereas the latter was a hate crime that was also an act of violence and discrimination.

In regards to the latter, Professor
Choung said,
“Expressing your opinion is one thing, but if you are hurting
others in the process, it’s called violence and discrimination.”

Hate
crimes and hate speech often get lumped together, but I think it
is important to distinguish the two. For one, the former is an act
that is committed against another individual that violates his right
to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. On the other hand,
the latter is simply a form of speech – though admittedly one of
the more vile types.

As
such, I thought that it'd be best if I wrote about the two topics
separately.

Hate
Crimes

As
I read what Professor Choung had to say about the matter, I could not
help but have some additional thoughts of my own.

Firstly,
I had to wonder if Professor Choung thinks it is acceptable to have a
government that passes laws that attempt to regulate the content of
people's thoughts. A little Big Brother-ish, if you ask me.

Secondly,
even if Professor Choung does think it is acceptable to have such
laws, his personal opinion is made irrelevant by the fact that such
laws are doomed to fail. Case in point, lawmakers can pass all the
laws they want to make people think that prostitution is immoral.
None of it will change the fact that prostitution will always remain
the world's oldest profession, and theirs the second-oldest; and not
by much!

Thirdly,
with the exception of those stories that involved the severely mentally ill, I do not
recall reading about any crime that was committed against another
person out of love. In fact, most criminals either hold indifference
or contempt for their victims. Doesn't that mean that almost all
crimes are hate crimes? Furthermore, wouldn't that mean that
designating some crimes as “hate crimes” but others as not mean
that some crimes will be more punitively punished than others for no
other reason than some people's arbitrary perceptions of hate?

Furthermore,
though it is true that intent matters when a crime is committed, I do
not see how designating a crime as being “hateful” does more than
the current existing judicial system. For instance, let's say that a
man has planned to murder his child in order to collect insurance
benefits, and he succeeds in his grisly act. Now let's say there is a
second man who planned to murder his child because the child is not
his – the child is his wife's whom she had from a prior marriage –
and an interracial one at that to boot. This second man despises the
child for not being his and for being “a racial abomination.” The
second man also succeeds in his grisly act.

In
either scenario, would the child be any less or more dead? Would either act be any less or more premeditated?Yes, intent
matters but that is already handled by the justice system.

It will attempt to regulate the content of people's thoughts, and will
effectively criminalize unpopular thoughts.

It will arbitrarily make some laws and crimes worse than others. Though laws can never
be completely objective, it is paramount to keep it as objective as
possible.

It
will potentially punitively punish people more than they deserve to
be punished. The law is supposed to dispense justice; not revenge.
Proportionality is key.

It
will serve as a redundant law that does nothing that the current
legal system does not already do besides serving a political
purpose.

What
it will NOT do is actually succeed in reducing crimes.

Hate
Speech (Part 1)

It's
worth repeating that Professor Choung said, “Expressing
your opinion is one thing, but if you are hurting others in the
process, it’s called violence and discrimination.”

Let's
take an example. Let's say there is a man who thinks that all Koreans
are an inferior race that ought to be exterminated. Let's also say
that this man is very vocal about that belief. However, he does not
act upon it, and simply tells whoever is willing to listen that all
Koreans should be killed.

Such
a man would certainly be considered obnoxious, among other things,
but can anyone objectively prove that he has hurt others by speaking
his mind? Of course the things that he says could hurt some people's
feelings, but hurt feelings are very difficult to quantify. Some
people might get into a fit of rage, others might be saddened, while
others might not even care.

Now
if it can be proven that the man incited violence through his words,
itself no easy task, then we would be talking about a very different
subject. However, like the intent behind the committing of a crime, the incitement of
violence is already something that the legal system deals with. The current legal system does not need any further reinforcement from hate speech laws.

Going back to Ilbe's “binge-eating” protest, there is no argument whatsoever
that it was done in very bad taste. No one with a properly
functioning brain could possibly see that as civilized behavior. But
did they actually cause harm to others? I am sure that the grieving
father, who has my deepest sympathies, suffered emotional distress.
And there are certainly existing laws that deal with that, too.
Provided that there is a clever enough lawyer under his employ, I am
sure that the man could claim for some damages. However, the man
would have been able to do the same had the counter-protesters been
members of a French mime troupe who were miming people drowning.

But
the important question is whether or not the “binge-eating”
counter-protest was an act of violence. Did the act, as atrocious as
it was, threaten the man's common rights or civil rights or civil
liberties? Did he have to fear for his life or safety? Unless such a
case can be made, it is quite farfetched to claim that the
counter-protest was an act of violence.

As
for Professor Choung's claim that expressing opinions that hurt
others is a form of discrimination, I cannot even begin to comprehend
how Professor Choung came to that conclusion.

Freedom
of speech is one of the most important bedrocks of a democratic
republic. It is based on the belief that each individual is his own
sovereign,
and, therefore, has the fundamental right to hold any thought that he
deems worthy – even if that thought seems despicable to everyone
else in the world. By extension, being prosecuted and/or persecuted
for no other reason than for expressing that thought is a violation
of that sovereignty.

The
fact of the matter is that when people defend the right to free
speech, no one ever defends Thomas
Jefferson or Nelson
Mandela. That is because neither Jefferson nor Mandela needs to
be defended. The words that they left behind have moved others to the
point that they themselves moved mountains. If humanity ever becomes
extinct and we are to be discovered by archaeologists of another
species in the future, I greatly hope that they will remember us as
the species that produced Jefferson and Mandela, rather than as the
species that produced “2
Girls 1 Cup.”

No,
we do not need to defend Jefferson or Mandela. What we do need to
defend are the dregs – those most offensive and disagreeable. To
quote none other than Larry
Flynt:

“If
the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it will
protect all of you. Because I'm the worst.”

All
over the world, from college campuses to parliaments to anonymous
internet forums, more and more people seem to be forgetting just how
important free speech is. Many
people are all too willing to add a caveat here or a qualification
there to say “Hey, I believe in freedom of speech, too, but you
can’t say that.”

What
many people who accept such a thought hardly ever seem to consider is that the that
they
consider unacceptable can always change in the future, and not in a
way that they might necessarily approve of.

Criminalizing
certain actions in order to protect the rights of others is one
thing. Criminalizing thought is an entirely different thing that is
not only doomed to fail, but also anathema to the principles on which
a free society must be based.

Combating
Prejudice

What
I found most telling about Professor Choung's view of the world was
when he reportedly said:

“And
there is no ‘natural’ way of combating prejudice. For many, it
does not go away ‘naturally.’ That is why we need to regulate
hate speech. Seemingly innocuous prejudice may snowball into more
pernicious forms (when expressed and shared by many), and result in
dangerous consequences.”

Is
there truly no “natural” way to combat prejudice? For those who
believe that, then by necessity, they must believe that racism in
America only began to be combated in 1964 when the Civil
Rights Act was passed. Never mind that anti-racist movements can
be traced
back to the Renaissance. Furthermore, can anyone offer any
evidence of regulating hate speech leading to an end or decrease in
prejudice?

If
Professor Choung is truly afraid of innocuous prejudice snowballing
into more pernicious forms when they are expressed and shared by
many, wouldn't it make more sense to let people who hold such views
to express their thoughts publicly so that they may compete in the free marketplace of ideas? Or does he doubt the strength of his own views
that he fears they may wither in the face of binge-eating fools?

One
would hope that a legal scholar would know better than to make
statements without offering evidence, and to have given serious
thoughts to the unintended consequences of the laws that he proposes.

Conclusion

Article
21, Section 1 of the Republic of Korea Constitution says:

All
citizens shall enjoy freedom of speech and the press, and freedom of
assembly and association.

Section
4 says:

Neither
speech nor the press shall violate the honor or rights of other
persons nor undermine public morals or social ethics. Should speech
or the press violate the honor or rights of other persons, claims may
be made for the damage resulting therefrom.

And
Article 37, Section 2 says:

The
freedoms and rights of citizens may be restricted by Act only when
necessary for national security, the maintenance of law and order or
for public welfare. Even when such restriction is imposed, no
essential aspect of the freedom or right shall be violated.

The
law guarantees the people's right to free speech and already
specifies when and how free speech might need to be curtailed. It is
true that despite the existence of these laws, people's freedom of
speech is not always respected. However, that is a different topic.
What is important is that it is difficult enough to protect freedom
of speech as it is without having to further contend with hate speech
legislation.

The
only other argument that those who argue for the passing and
implementing of hate speech laws seems to be that other countries have
already passed hate speech and hate crime laws. The Korea Herald
article makes sure to point out countries like Germany, the United
States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Croatia, Norway, and the
Netherlands as paragons of virtue for having passed their hate speech
and hate crime laws.

I
don't understand how anyone could think that such an argument is
convincing or deep.

Engaging
in acts that are racist or sexist or any other motive based on hate
is ugly. But color me unconvinced and unimpressed when people make
baseless claims about the dubious virtues of legislation.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

By
now, most people must have heard about the incident in Korean Air
that has been dubbed “Nut
Rage.”

For
those who are still unaware, a
Korean Air executive, Ms. Cho Hyun-ah, who is the airline's head of
cabin service and the daughter of the company's boss, created a
ruckus on one of her company's planes that was headed from New York
to Incheon. Ms. Cho had caused a delay in the flight when she
demanded that a senior crew member be removed from the flight when
the crew member failed to serve macadamia nuts “properly.”
According to the story, the crew member served Ms. Cho the
nuts in a bag, instead of serving
the nuts on a plate.

When
the news broke out on social media, justice was swift and terrible.
Ms. Cho resigned from her position as head of cabin service, but
continued to be an executive at the company. When that failed to
satiate the fury of the Internet mob, she resigned from all of her
roles from the company.

Justice
had been served. Seemingly.

In
a way, I can understand where Ms. Cho came from (assuming that the
anger was purely based on her disappointment over improper service;
and that her attitude having been the result of being her father's
daughter did not play any role in her action).

What
she did lack was tact. She could have resolved the situation so much
more amicably. She could have given a stern one-on-one pep talk. She
could have gently reminded the crew member of the company's
regulations about how to properly serve food to first class
passengers. However, she chose to be as dramatic as possible and
turned herself into a symbol that represents everything that people
hate about the rich.

But
we have to go back to the question. Does capitalism, indeed, breed
nepotism? This question is not without merit. After all, Ms. Cho is
her father's daughter.

However,
I am disinclined to agree with the statement. I do not think that
capitalism breeds nepotism at all.

Firstly,
we have to recognize one thing – no matter how much we may talk
about individualism, human society has always revolved around the
family. Before
meritocracy and individualism, children joining the family was
standard practice, and in many ways, it still is.

As
time has progressed, with social and economic equality becoming more
important to many people, nowadays people like to imagine that they
are more ambivalent about family ties. However, there seems very
little evidence to say that is actually the case.

Therefore,
it would seem that nepotism is far older than capitalism.

Secondly,
generally speaking, the children of wealthy parents tend to be highly
qualified individuals in their own right. Though admittedly they went
to the best schools because their wealthy parents paid for their
pricey education, it does not change the fact that they have often
gone to the best schools. Furthermore, due to the pressure that is
often placed on them to be excellent in whatever they do, they often
excel in their own right.

I
have heard many people point to these female Asian leaders to express
their disappointment with the American people's
inability/unwillingness to (yet) elect a woman to the White House.
However, those people are only telling a half-truth. What they don't
tend to mention is that people from India, Indonesia, Myanmar,
Pakistan, the Philippines, and Korea appear to be more willing to
elect women because people in those societies tend to value family
affiliations more.

Whether
we like to admit it or not, women's advancement (at least in
politics) often seems to begin at the altar.

So,
due to the historical precedence that nepotism has over capitalism,
and that it is not unique to humans, it would appear that capitalism
does not breed nepotism. However, considering that the rich tend
to marry only among themselves, it would seem that at the very
least, capitalism does enforce nepotism and vice versa. After all,
one of the main reasons why people continue to work to earn more
money than they need for themselves is to ensure that they can
provide a more comfortable life for their children.

Is
there a cure for nepotism? Well, I am not entirely sure if nepotism
is actually a disease that requires a cure. More than anything else,
it seems like it is an ingrained part of our more inner-psyche that
cannot be easily extricated by mere legislation. Perhaps if all
humans evolved to treat the rule of law as sacrosanct, we may see
changing attitudes toward nepotism (and perhaps even toward the
notion of family itself). Until, then, however, whether the
prevailing economic system is based on laissez-faire capitalism,
crony capitalism, corporatism, welfarism, socialism, communism, or
whatever other -ism there is, it seems that we will not be ridding
ourselves of nepotism any time soon.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

The
other day, a Facebook acquaintance linked a post on his Facebook
page, which showed up on my news feed. It was a link to a website
called Korea
Exposé.
The title of the article was “Disposable Workers of Hyper-Capitalist Korea.”

It
is no secret that (fairly or unfairly) Korea is known as being
relatively unsympathetic to workers' rights (see here).
So I agreed with the author before even reading his article that
Korean workers could be treated better than they are treated. But is
Korea hyper-capitalist?
It is certainly news to me.

So
I gave it a read. Not too surprisingly, the author, Se-Woong
Koo, started off his post by providing a list of workers being abused
by their supervisors, employers, and customers. It's always a good
idea to start a blog post with an emotional punch to the readers'
guts. It makes sure that the readers stay interested and keep
reading. Perhaps I should start doing that more often, too.

The
author then says that during a discussion among his friends, many of
whom are academics specializing in Korea, as they tried to figure out
the root cause of all this violence against workers,

...the
disagreement came down to whether we should primarily fault
capitalism or Korea’s culture and recent history of colonialism,
militarisation, and entrenched biases against manual labour.

Who
in Korea has not had this exact same conversation multiple times? I
(and I am sure that countless others) have engaged in, as well as
watched, this same conversation so many times that it has become a
cliché. If learned academics who specialize in Korea are having the
same conversation as the rest of us laity, then I do believe that the
debate over whether or not higher education is necessary to produce
well-educated citizens is over.

But
it gets better (or worse, I suppose) when the author says

It
is true that capitalism in an unregulated form fundamentally
dehumanises individual workers as nothing more than providers of
labour, for which wage is seen as sufficient compensation.

That's
quite the powerful statement – dehumanize. When I saw that, I was
reminded of an old joke I once heard. A man meets up with an old
friend whom he has not seen in decades. As the friends are exchanging
pleasantries, the friend asks the man how is wife is. The man
answers, “My wife? Compared to what?”

Well,
let's for a moment put aside the fact that capitalism does
not
actually dehumanize people because capitalism is much more than
simply about mass production, but about mass production to satisfy
the needs of the masses (in order to make a profit). Also, let's, for
the sake of argument, assume that Korea is indeed a hyper-capitalist
society.

Are
Korean workers worse off today than they were, let's say, forty years
ago? How about thirty or twenty or ten years ago? Or how about a
hundred years ago? I am going to go out on a limb and say that anyone
who is going to say that Korean workers were better off in the past
than they are today is going to have a very difficult time trying to
come up with an objective, backed-up-by-data answer.

To
his credit, the author does add a definition for hyper-capitalism. He
says:

It
means that South Korea, as a rapidly developed economic powerhouse,
has embraced and refined capitalism to the point unseen in other
countries, a fact noted with no small amount of pride.

You
will note that this is yet another assertion that the author makes
without giving any sort of evidence. Especially considering the fact
that the Korean economy bears someresemblance
to the Japanese economy, it is quite unlikely that Korea's
hyper-capitalism has been “unseen in other countries.”

Then
there was this nugget:

But
the term also implies that something is off with the South Korean
version of capitalism, which has thoroughly succeeded in inculcating
conviction in money as the singular measure of good both public and
private, unencumbered by state regulation or respect for basic
rights. Being the ‘purest’ form of capitalism, it also represents
the worst form of the ideology imaginable.

Whether
or not money is considered to be “the singular measure of good both
public and private” is debatable. Although money is certainly very
important (my favorite moral defense of money came from Ayn Rand's
AtlasShrugged
when one of her heroes, Francisco D'Anconia gives a speech that
became popularly known as “the
root of money” speech), there seems to be no evidence to
suggest that money is “the singular measure of good both public and
private.”

But
that's a philosophical discussion, which could go on forever without
ever changing any of the debaters' minds. The real debate that we
have is with the author's assertion that Korea's version of
capitalism is “unencumbered by state regulation or respect for
basic rights.”

Right
now, as of this writing, Korea has 14,975
government regulations on the books. Two laws that I can think of
that the Korean government recently passed are the Retail
Structure Improvement Act, which prevents telecommunication
companies (under the threat of criminal prosecution) from subsidizing
their customers any amount more than ₩345,000 and the Book
Discount Law, which prevents retail bookstores from selling books
at a discount any higher than 15%.

Although
it has not been made into law just yet, the
International Direct Purchase Law is a proposed law, which will
regulate how much, how, and what individual consumers will be able to
purchase from international websites such as Amazon or eBay.

So,
where is the “unencumbered by state regulation” and the “'purest'
form of capitalism?”

As
for the author's comment about Korea's hyper-capitalism being
“unencumbered by respect for basic rights,” though it's true that
there have been many instances of Korean workers being abused, it's
quite telling that he neglects to mention that Korean labor unions
are some of the most militant in the world (see here,
here,
here,
here,
and here).
Perhaps it could be argued that many business leaders have no
respect for basic workers' rights. But that is entirely different
from saying that workers have no rights.

And
finally, the author says

the
Park Geun-hye administration’s current motto is “Creative
Economy”, a thinly veiled euphemism for deregulation.

For
proof of President Park's love affair with deregulation, he provides
a link
to the
Korea Herald,
where President Park championed deregulation as the best way to
revitalize South Korea's economy and create jobs.

Admittedly,
there are fewer government regulations now than there were at the
beginning of the year. There are currently 14,975 regulations while
there were 15,282 regulations in January.

On
the one hand, President Park's “creative economy” is trying to
make it easier
for businesses to lay off workers, while on the other, it is also
slowly but surely removing the disincentives of staying unemployed
via welfare programs.

Considering
the potential net effects of the “creative economy,” it might be
far too early, and also too much of a stretch to claim that it is a
euphemism for deregulation.

At
the end of the blog post, it says that the author, Se-Woong Koo, earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University. It does not say what he
got his Ph.D in. However, something tells me that it was not in economics.

(One,
does this mean that we can finally all agree that “free” is not
really free? Two, I hope NPAD's advisers are unpaid interns. Even
the most amateur gambler will tell you never to double down on a
losing hand unless you are really
good
at bluffing, which the NPAD is not good at doing.)

In
an article in the JoongAng
Ilbo, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
and Transportation released a report to Saenuri lawmakers that stated
that “assuming that the National Housing Fund's 2015 interest rates
are held constant, constructing 30,000 homes over a period of four
years will cost up to ₩3.6 trillion (US$3.2 billion). Furthermore,
constructing 100,000 homes over a period of four years will cost up
to ₩12.1 trillion (US$10.7 billion)”

Sense
seemed to prevail when members of the ruling Saenuri Party opposed
the NPAD Party's plans. They said that the plan was “unfeasible.”

However,
lest anyone begins to think that the Saenuri Party is somehow the
bastion of rational thought, I think this would be a good time to
remind everyone that it is the same party that is still throwing its
full weight behind Abenomics'
even-uglier stepsister, Choinomics.

I
could also talk about how economists/partisan economists/politicians
can never predict economic conditions of the future (as even the OECD
admits) because central bankers and political leaders who like
to think of themselves as enlightened leaders tend to only see
positive signs in the economy than spot potential problems because,
like everyone else in the world, they like to think that they are
doing a good job (see confirmation
bias). This is why no one should ever trust a politician when a
politician says “Trust me.”

Finally,
I could talk about the pitfalls of populism. I could talk about how
populism is, by its very nature, more focused on “redistribution”
rather than thinking of ways to create new wealth. I could talk
about how the problem with populists is that for all their flowery
rhetoric, most of them have little to no idea about how to realize
their lofty goals without having to “break
a few eggs.” I could talk about how populism may be an
attractive means to achieving short-term political victories, but
that in the long-term, when its leadership finally has to own up to
its own inadequacies, it will also have to contend with an enraged
public that was promised Nirvana but delivered anything but.

I
could talk about all that. But I won't. Going into an in-depth
conversation about those topics requires sober thought, seriousness,
and rational thought. However, politicians clearly have no such
capability.

If
this “homes for newlywed couples” is the best idea that NPAD
lawmakers can come up with, I don't think that Saenuri lawmakers
could possibly ask for a more loyal opposition as the Saenuri Party
will be guaranteed to win one election after another, not because the
Saenuri Party is wise or prudent, but only because it is a little
less stupid than the NPAD Party.

As
though the title wasn't enough to pique my curiosity, the cover of
the book showed a picture of what looks like a typical North Korean
propaganda poster – communist revolutionaries looking proudly
toward their bright future. However, instead of being represented by
a picture of Kim Il-sung or his son or his grandson, the bright
future is represented by the Sign of the Dollar.

I
had never heard of either the book or the author, Felix Abt, a Swiss
national who was appointed by ABB
as its director for North Korea, before. As soon as I saw the book,
I knew that I had to read it.

I
expected to read about bureaucratic red tape, the effects of
sanctions, the “culture shock” of introducing capitalism to a
citizenry that has known nothing but the Kim Dynasty's juche,
and the slow but sure growth of capitalism in North Korea. I
expected to get enlightenment. What I got was disappointment.

The
book is only 317 pages long. It should not take more than a couple
of days to finish reading such a book. It took me three weeks; and
what a painful three weeks it was as I had to figuratively flog
myself to finally finish it.

In
the first opening pages of the book, he mentions the 2010 sinking of
the ROKS Cheonan.
Despite the mountains of evidence that points to North Korea's
involvement in the sinking of the corvette (here,
here, here,
here,
and here),
Abt openly doubts North Korea's involvement
because
“a prominent Korean seismologist and and an Israeli geologist
suggested, based on an analysis of seismic and acoustic waves, that
the ship probably hit a South Korean mine.”

A
bitter taste in my mouth began to form before I even
began the first chapter. However, he then immediately says that “all
of it plays into a bigger picture of geopolitical bullying.”

The
last time I checked, it was the North Koreans who were firing
artillery, rockets, missiles, kidnapping foreign citizens, and
threatening war against its
neighbors.

The
book is not without its merits. There were the bits of information
that I had hoped for and expected. However, out of the book's 317
pages, relevant information could not have been printed on more than
twenty to thirty pages. The rest of it was utter rubbish.

Abt
seems to find
it funny as he acknowledges that others have called him North
Korea's “useful idiot.” But what he does not seem to know is that
he
also seems to have gone fully native after he had lived in North
Korea for so long. By that, I mean
that Abt seems to have fully adopted the North Korean method of being
as erratically contradictory
as often as possible.

For
example, Abt insists that North Koreans are not at all brainwashed.
In fact, he compares North Korean propaganda to advertisements that
people see in other countries. Specifically, he says “the world
businesses engage in another form of propaganda: advertising. The
only difference is that it advances a cause of consumerism rather
than politics.” To hammer home the point, he also rhetorically
asks if Americans “get brainwashed by cravings for McDonald's and
Starbucks seeing their logos smothered all over the country.”

Never
mind that McDonald's and Starbucks are merely corporations that do
not have the ability to arrest or gun down those who do not like
their products. But as far as Abt is concerned, they are both
morally equivalent.

But
I was willing to let it go. Perhaps we did have it all wrong about
the North Koreans being brainwashed. After all, he lived in North
Korea for seven years. Wouldn't he know better? However, even
before I could acclimate myself to believing what he said, he
contradicts himself by saying that the
patriotic songs that North Koreans sing are not about their love for
their country, but rather their love for their leaders. In fact,
North Korea's supposedly most popular melody is a catchy tune about
how North Koreans cannot exist without “General” Kim Jong-il who
has “extraordinary talents and virtues.”

But
it's just a song with a catchy tune. Who cares about that? It's
true. One song does not brainwash an entire country. But then Abt
later says that North Koreans “would jump into torrential floods at
the risk of their lives to save portraits of Kim Il-sung.”

He
then mentions that “around 40 percent of elementary school classes
are on the childhood of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il” and that North
Koreans are “taught from an early age to be proud of being Koreans
rather than coming from a “less fortunate” race such as the
Japanese.” And during art festivals for schoolchildren, kindergartners make drawings titled “Let's cut the throat of US
imperialism!”

According
to Abt, North Koreans are so the-opposite-of-brainwashed that a
senior party cadre asked rhetorically why North Koreans should have
statistics about suicide. After all, “Our people are among the
happiest on earth,” the senior party cadre supposedly claimed.

It
is a sentiment that Abt seems to share as he adds, “Astoundingly, I
never came across people (North Koreans) who would have criticized or
even challenged the system, nor did I meet expatriates who had heard
about such cases.”Because your average North Korean, who has learned his whole life to be careful of what he says in front of even those that he loves and trusts, would then outwardly speak ill of the regime to a foreigner?

I
suppose Abt thinks that people ought to have their minds so broken
that they would become unwitting assassins a la “The Manchurian Candidate”
for Abt to consider someone to have become brainwashed.

Another
glaring contradiction in his book was about the way Christians are
treated in the country. He says:

“A true Christian believer in
today's North Korea would be branded as a traitor of the worst kind.
During the century before the DPRK was founded, white American
Protestants from the Bible belt promoted Christianity as the religion
of a superior foreign race, making it today antithetical to the
revolution.”

However,
a few pages later, he says:

“Despite stereotypes that North Korea
overwhelmingly represses the Christian religion, the government
usually doesn't see the Lord as a serious threat to its earthly
system. I once asked a senior security official if they did not feel
threatened by Moon's Unification Church, active in North Korea in the
hospitality and car manufacturing industries. He answered quite
candidly: “Well, you know, it's a cat-and-mouse game.” It's a
never-ending contest that the North Koreans will make sure the other
side can never win.”

So
which is it? Are North Korean Christians branded as traitors or does
the North Korean regime not see Christianity as a threat? As I said,
just like the regime itself, Abt appears to have embraced its
dual-personality disorder.

The
part where Abt appears to have accepted North Korean propaganda as
his own is when he complains on numerous occasions about the havoc
that international sanctions have had on North Korea's economy. He
mentions that if it just weren't for the sanctions, the North Koreans
would have access to state-of-the-art technology that they so richly
deserve.

However,
he never once mentions why North Korea is the most heavily sanctioned
nation in the world. He mentions North Korea's nuclear tests in
passing, but never once stops to ponder that the North Korean
leadership has no one to blame for the sanctions that have been
placed on it but itself.

The
only thing that he said that seemed to make any sense was how
ineffective the sanctions were. He claimed that, too often,
sanctions do not hurt criminals or government officials, but rather
ordinary citizens.

So
what does he say when sanctions are finally fine-tuned so that it will only
specifically hurt the North Korean leadership? He says:

“In
July 2012, the UN Security Council released a report on sanctions,
according to the AP news agency, which wrote: “No violations
involving nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or ballistic
missiles were mentioned in the 74-page report to the Security Council
committee monitoring sanctions, published Friday.” On the other
hand, the document highlighted North Korea's responsibility for
illegally imported luxury goods including tobacco, bottles of sake,
secondhand pianos, and several secondhand Mercedes Benz cars. It is
stunning that these would be considered serious crimes which the
Security Council had to urgently address.”

So now that the Security Council has gotten it right, he thinks it's a waste of time. How very convenient.

However,
the most outrageous thing that he claims in the book is about the human rights violations in that country, which the world is
finally paying
some attention to.

Abt
admits that anywhere between 120,000 to 200,000 people are being held
in prison camps, but then brushes it all aside by saying that that
figure “represents less than 1 per cent of the total population.”

He further acts as a North Korea-apologist by comparing that figure
to American incarceration rates, because America is “home to the highest
documented percentage of prison inmates in the world.” Like as
though the conditions of imprisoned Americans could be compared to
the North Korean practice of imprisoning three generations of an
entire family in gulags for the “political crimes” of one person!

“While I clearly
disavow any human rights abuses in North Korea and anywhere else in
the world, I'm a businessman who has never visited any gulag or
prison. I am not a human rights expert.”

Seeing
how he admits that he is not a human rights expert, one would think
that he would remain silent about this topic from here on out.
However, he does not.

To
be specific, Abt has some choice words about North Korean defectors
who speak ill of North Korean human rights violations. He claims
that “as 70 percent of them (North
Korean defectors) remain jobless in South Korea, they can make a
living by selling dubious information.”

There
are approximately 27,000
North Korean defectors currently living in South Korea. And
there are thousands more who live elsewhere around the world. You
would think that if there was, indeed, a conspiracy among North Korean
defectors to sell a grand lie, it would be a matter of time before that
lie was punctured. But such logic seems to escape Abt.

Abt
also adds that “the intelligence services, academics, book authors,
journalists, and human rights and political activists who interview
these defectors almost ceaselessly after their arrival in South Korea
have an impact on their narrative, too. Those who know the North
Korean refugee resettlement process in South Korea are aware of how
easily individual accounts evolve over time from mild accounts of
hunger or seeking economic opportunities to romantic tales of escape
against all odds.”

To
add the cherry to his insult against North Korean defectors and their
testimony, he adds that “while it is a serious issue, North Korea's
foes are equally guilty of using rights rhetoric as a political tool
to further isolate and corner the regime.”

Like
as though the regime did not isolate and corner itself for decades
with its jucheand
songunpolicies.

In
a different but related issue, Abt also says that throughout his
seven years in North Korea, he had never seen a single starving
person. To be specific, he claims, “In the mid-2000s, I did not
come across starving people, though I did see scores of thin Koreans
who looked malnourished.”

I
suppose that it's possible that Abt had never seen this
young woman or others like her (see here, here, and here). But do they not exist because
he had never seen them? In his mind, it seems to be so.

And
what does Abt have to say about those videos of North Koreans who are
foraging for food? They're not starving! He claims that foraging
for food is a traditional pastime. To be specific, he says:

“What
many outside North Korea generally ignore is that the much-quoted
“foraging for food” is an age-old North and South Korean
tradition, a result of the absence of arable land in the North to
grow crops. For centuries, Koreans from all over the peninsula have
consumed wild mushrooms and edibles – long before the foundation of
the DPRK – and they still love to eat them.”

Of course. That must be why so many South Koreans also go out to forage for food everyday. Oh right. They don't.

But
just so that Abt makes it clear that there is hunger in North Korea
and that the North Korean government is doing its best to “take
care of its people,” Abt says “Amazingly, Kim Jong-il was, unlike
other Asian leaders, highly enthusiastic about potatoes and soybeans
and gave them a role in agricultural development.”

Abt
never mentions that it is likely that other Asian leaders were not
enthusiastic about potatoes or soybeans for their own countries'
agricultural development because they did not have to be.

There
are far too many other contradictions that he writes, as well as far
too many statements that cannot be taken as anything other than the
defense of the North Korean dictatorship. In fact, I dog-eared all
the pages that I felt contained such statements. If I mentioned
every single instance of this, however, I would have to scan and
upload the entire book!

Despite Abt's insistence that he is apolitical, this book is essentially a political book more than anything else; and it is excruciatingly awful. In Abt's narrative, North Korea is not evil
in the slightest bit. In fact, there are plenty of other evil
regimes in the world, which, therefore, naturally, exonerates North
Korea of all its sins. And if it has sinned, Abt never saw any of
it! He's just a businessman, for heaven's sake! Nobody is
either good or bad. Never mind reality!Truly “A Capitalist in
North Korea” can be called enlightening only by devaluing the
term.

Throughout
this entire book, it is amazing how Abt manages to sustain an oozy,
cynical tone, which is the book's most striking feature. Its sheer
stupidity is disgusting and without reprieve. Its sense of morality
is non-existent. From almost any page of the book, I could hear a
hollow, ghostly voice droning on repeatedly “There is no good or
evil – it just is.”

Well,
I saw evil in the pages of this book. And I saw that evil was
impotent, irrational, stupid, vain, and blind.

If
anyone chooses to fork over their hard-earned money for this book, I will
certainly not try to dissuade them. After all, who knows how to best
spend their own money than the individuals themselves? However, if
there is anyone who still wishes to purchase this book, might I suggest a cheaper and more practical
brand of toilet paper? Charmin, perhaps?

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About Me

My name is John Lee and I am currently the editor and writer behind the independently-run blog, “The Korean Foreigner.”

Recently, I have also begun to work as a freelance copy editor for Freedom Factory. Here, with permission from Freedom Factory, I shall post English translations of Freedom Factory’s weekly newsletter “Freedom Voice.”